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Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children

How parents talk about social events shapes their children’s understanding of the social world and themselves. In this study, we show that parents in a society that more strongly values individualism (the United States) and one that more strongly values collectivism (Japan) differ in how they talk a...

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Autores principales: Kuwabara, Megumi, Smith, Linda B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8764154/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35058848
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.778960
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author Kuwabara, Megumi
Smith, Linda B.
author_facet Kuwabara, Megumi
Smith, Linda B.
author_sort Kuwabara, Megumi
collection PubMed
description How parents talk about social events shapes their children’s understanding of the social world and themselves. In this study, we show that parents in a society that more strongly values individualism (the United States) and one that more strongly values collectivism (Japan) differ in how they talk about negative social events, but not positive ones. An animal puppet show presented positive social events (e.g., giving a gift) and negative social events (e.g., knocking over another puppet’s block tower). All shows contained two puppets, an actor and a recipient of the event. We asked parents to talk to their 3- and 4-years old children about these events. A total of 26 parent–child dyads from the United States (M = 41.92 months) and Japan (M = 42.77 months) participated. The principal dependent measure was how much parent talk referred to the actor of each type of social event. There were no cultural differences observed in positive events – both the United States and Japanese parents discussed actors more than recipients. However, there were cultural differences observed in negative events – the United States parents talked mostly about the actor but Japanese parents talked equally about the actor and the recipient of the event. The potential influences of these differences on early cognitive and social development are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-87641542022-01-19 Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children Kuwabara, Megumi Smith, Linda B. Front Psychol Psychology How parents talk about social events shapes their children’s understanding of the social world and themselves. In this study, we show that parents in a society that more strongly values individualism (the United States) and one that more strongly values collectivism (Japan) differ in how they talk about negative social events, but not positive ones. An animal puppet show presented positive social events (e.g., giving a gift) and negative social events (e.g., knocking over another puppet’s block tower). All shows contained two puppets, an actor and a recipient of the event. We asked parents to talk to their 3- and 4-years old children about these events. A total of 26 parent–child dyads from the United States (M = 41.92 months) and Japan (M = 42.77 months) participated. The principal dependent measure was how much parent talk referred to the actor of each type of social event. There were no cultural differences observed in positive events – both the United States and Japanese parents discussed actors more than recipients. However, there were cultural differences observed in negative events – the United States parents talked mostly about the actor but Japanese parents talked equally about the actor and the recipient of the event. The potential influences of these differences on early cognitive and social development are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-01-04 /pmc/articles/PMC8764154/ /pubmed/35058848 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.778960 Text en Copyright © 2022 Kuwabara and Smith. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Kuwabara, Megumi
Smith, Linda B.
Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children
title Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children
title_full Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children
title_fullStr Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children
title_full_unstemmed Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children
title_short Focus on One or More? Cultural Similarities and Differences in How Parents Talk About Social Events to Preschool Children
title_sort focus on one or more? cultural similarities and differences in how parents talk about social events to preschool children
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8764154/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35058848
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.778960
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